Love Stories in this Town [Paperback]

I loved this collection from start to finish, which is very unusual for me. The prose was spare and minimal, yet the smallest details seemed to illuminate the characters and their world. Ward is often fun and witty here, but what I found most engaging about this collection was how the characters haunted me afterwards. With subtlety and a soft-touch, the author gets to the heart of the matter each and every time. Even reading the story about a 9/11 widow, I never felt as if the events drove the writing. It's all about the characters here. They feel organic, real, and brimming with stories worth hearing.

BOOK REVIEW: Sense of Place Explored in Amanda Eyre Ward's 'Love Stories in This Town'

By David M. Kinchen

Where you live can affect just about everything in your life; that's the intriguing premise explored by Amanda Eyre Ward in her collection of 12 short stories, "Love Stories in This Town" (Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original, 224 pages, $14).

The first six stories explore six different characters and how they relate to where they live; the remaining half dozen -- "Lola Stories" -- deal with Lola Wilkerson's complicated loves and her search for what she wants to do when she grows up -- and her interaction with her alcoholic father and disapproving mother-in-law.

In the first section, in the story "The Way the Sky Changed," Casey, a 9/11 widow living in a New York suburb, tentatively begins dating again -- with a 9/11 widower. She lost her lawyer husband Paul in the attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Her friends introduce her to Kent, who lost his software saleswoman wife Wendy who was on Flight 11. Humor and tragedy collide in this perfect-pitch penned story.

In "Butte As In Beautiful," Annie, a star basketball player and class valedictorian, takes a job right out of high school in the Butte, Montana library. She wants to attend the University of Montana in Missoula as a Lady Griz, but a bad knee has kept her out of the ranks of college student-athletes: "Annie, that knee is going to give in less than a season," her coach warns her, even as the coaches for the Lady Griz persist in recruiting her. In the meantime, there's a public masturbator prowling the stacks of the library...

In "The Stars Are Bright in Texas," Kimmy and her husband Greg have flown into Houston to look at houses in the planned development of The Woodlands north of the largest city in the Lone Star State. Kimmy is recovering from the stillbirth of her child and doesn't seem to be in the best condition to be househunting, especially since the house they want has been snatched from them by a higher bidder.

The other three stories deal with a couple in Austin, Texas concerned about anthrax attacks; a family tragedy that forces Bill and Lizzy to examine their own lives in a Maine cabin and in pre-dot.com bust San Francisco, Mimi is employed in the marketing department of Shakespeare.com. She and her teacher husband Leo are trying to start a family in their termite-infested house in Bernal Heights.

All three are wonderfully executed by a very original writer. I was going to bring up the usual suspects to compare them to Ward, but then i thought of our contemporary Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz. Yes, Ward's writing has the spirit of the quintessential New Yorker Lebowitz, author of "Metropolitan Life."

And then comes Lola...

The six Lola stories start when college student Lola Wilkerson, from upscale suburban Rye, New York, is dumped by her boyfriend Iain, who falls in love with Miss Montana in the story "Miss Montana's Wedding Day." All this takes place in the town where Annie wanted to move to, Missoula, Montana, home of the University of Montana.

In the second story, "Nan and Claude," we're seeing Nan Wilkerson, Lola's mom, as her marriage and life disintegrate. Claude is Nan's hairdresser. Nan and her investment banker husband Fred are drifting apart and a striking new hairdo by Claude isn't enough to keep Fred from running off.

In "She Almost Wrote Love," Lola discovers the love of her life, geologist Emmett, from a well-to-do Texas family. She also tries to find a third wife for her straying father, Fred. Nan has become the women's tennis pro in the country club where she was formerly a member.

Lola and Emmett are living in the expat compound in Saudi Arabia in the fourth story "Motherhood and Terrorism." The story is set in the period immediately after the Khobar Towers terrorism attack and Lola is desperately homesick for a more normal life in the States, while Emmett has his dream job as a geologist with BP.

Lola and Emmett have moved to Austin in "The Blue Flame," where Emmett has secured a teaching position in the geology department of the University of Texas. It doesn't pay anywhere near what he was earning in the Middle East and their growing family is living in what Emmett's mom Sissy considers absolute squalor. So, she naturally goes on a spending spree to help her son and his wife live a bit less messier.

And, speaking of messes, Lola's wandering dad Fred appears at their house in Austin in the sixth Lola story, "Grandpa Fred in Love." He wants a ride to Baytown, he says, to visit a woman he met on the Internet. Lola is the classically overbooked mother, but she still has ties to her almost always exasperating dad. Her predicament reminds me of the old line: "Friends you can choose or lose; you're stuck with your family."

"Love Stories in This Town" is a book both men and women will enjoy. It's a natural for a book club and Ballantine thoughtfully provides a reader's guide. For those who love short stories, "Love Stories in This Town" is a must-read book. As a lover of short stories who wants more published, I can't recommend this book too highly.

About the Author: Amanda Eyre Ward is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Montana. She is the author of three novels: "Sleep Toward Heaven," "How to Be Lost," and "Forgive Me." She and her family live in Austin, Texas.

Author's web site: www.amandaward.com

I had high hopes for this book. It was a major let-down. The stories left you with too many unanswered questions. There was no organization in the stories. The author jumped all over the place, going off subject, and I found myself turning back pages, wondering what the original story line was. The book was not edited very well. Names of characters suddenly changed, places changed, sentences weren't constructed correctly, etc. Each story felt exactly the same too. They were all about a woman from a small town who is dating/married/in love with a scientist. BORING. It was a mess and frustrating to read.

Bottom line, don't waste your time.